Gwen's hope and bright courage, in spite of all her pain, were wonderful to witness. But all this cheery hope and courage and patience snuffed out as a candle, leaving noisome darkness to settle down in that sick-room from the day of the doctor's consultation.
The verdict was clear and final. The old doctor, who loved Gwen as his own, was inclined to hope against hope, but Fawcett, the clever young doctor from the distant town, was positive in his opinion. The scene is clear to me now, after many years. We three stood in the outer room; The Duke and her father were with Gwen. So earnest was the discussion that none of us heard the door open just as young Fawcett was saying in incisive tones:
“No! I can see no hope. The child can never walk again.”
There was a cry behind us.
“What! Never walk again! It's a lie!” There stood the Old Timer, white, fierce, shaking.
“Hush!” said the old doctor, pointing at the open door. He was too late. Even as he spoke, there came from the inner room a wild, unearthly cry as of some dying thing and, as we stood gazing at one another with awe-stricken faces, we heard Gwen's voice as in quick, sharp pain.
“Daddy! daddy! come! What do they say? Tell me, daddy. It is not true! It is not true! Look at me, daddy!”
She pulled up her father's haggard face from the bed.
“Oh, daddy, daddy, you know it's true. Never walk again!”
She turned with a pitiful cry to The Duke, who stood white and stiff with arms drawn tight across his breast on the other side of the bed.
“Oh, Duke, did you hear them? You told me to be brave, and I tried not to cry when they hurt me. But I can't be brave! Can I, Duke? Oh, Duke! Never to ride again!”
She stretched out her hands to him. But The Duke, leaning over her and holding her hands fast in his, could only say brokenly over and over: “Don't, Gwen! Don't, Gwen dear!”
But the pitiful, pleading voice went on.
“Oh, Duke! Must I always lie here? Must, I? Why must I?”
“God knows,” answered The Duke bitterly, under his breath, “I don't!”
She caught at the word.
“Does He?” she cried, eagerly. Then she paused suddenly, turned to me and said: “Do you remember he said some day I could not do as I liked?”
I was puzzled.
“The Pilot,” she cried, impatiently, “don't you remember? And I said I should do as I liked till I died.”
I nodded my head and said: “But you know you didn't mean it.”
“But I did, and I do,” she cried, with passionate vehemence, “and I will do as I like! I will not lie here! I will ride! I will! I will! I will!” and she struggled up, clenched her fists, and sank back faint and weak. It was not a pleasant sight, but gruesome. Her rage against that Unseen Omnipotence was so defiant and so helpless.
Those were dreadful weeks to Gwen and to all about her. The constant pain could not break her proud spirit; she shed no tears; but she fretted and chafed and grew more imperiously exacting every day. Ponka and Joe she drove like a slave master, and even her father, when he could not understand her wishes, she impatiently banished from her room. Only The Duke could please or bring her any cheer, and even The Duke began to feel that the day was not far off when he, too, would fail, and the thought made him despair. Her pain was hard to bear, but harder than the pain was her longing for the open air and the free, flower-strewn, breeze-swept prairie. But most pitiful of all were the days when, in her utter weariness and uncontrollable unrest, she would pray to be taken down into the canyon.
“Oh, it is so cool and shady,” she would plead, “and the flowers up in the rocks and the vines and things are all so lovely. I am always better there. I know I should be better,” till The Duke would be distracted and would come to me and wonder what the end would be.
One day, when the strain had been more terrible than usual, The Duke rode down to me and said:
“Look here, this thing can't go on. Where is The Pilot gone? Why doesn't he stay where he belongs? I wish to Heaven he would get through with his absurd rambling.”
“He's gone where he was sent,” I replied shortly. “You don't set much store by him when he does come round. He is gone on an exploring trip through the Dog Lake country. He'll be back by the end of next week.”
“I say, bring him up, for Heaven's sake,” said The Duke, “he may be of some use, and anyway it will be a new face for her, poor child.” Then he added, rather penitently: “I fear this thing is getting on to my nerves. She almost drove me out to-day. Don't lay it up against me, old chap.”
It was a new thing to hear The Duke confess his need of any man, much less penitence for a fault. I felt my eyes growing dim, but I said, roughly:
“You be hanged! I'll bring The Pilot up when he comes.”
It was wonderful how we had all come to confide in The Pilot during his year of missionary work among us. Somehow the cowboy's name of “Sky Pilot” seemed to express better than anything else the place he held with us. Certain it is, that when, in their dark hours, any of the fellows felt in need of help to strike the “upward trail,” they went to The Pilot; and so the name first given in chaff came to be the name that expressed most truly the deep and tender feeling these rough, big-hearted men cherished for him. When The Pilot came home I carefully prepared him for his trial, telling all that Gwen had suffered and striving to make him feel how desperate was her case when even The Duke had to confess himself beaten. He did not seem sufficiently impressed. Then I pictured for him all her fierce wilfulness and her fretful humors, her impatience with those who loved her and were wearing out their souls and bodies for her. “In short,” I concluded, “she doesn't care a rush for anything in heaven or earth, and will yield to neither man nor God.”
The Pilot's eyes had been kindling as I talked, but he only answered, quietly:
“What could you expect?”
“Well, I do think she might show some signs of gratitude and some gentleness towards those ready to die for her.”
“Oh, you do!” said he, with high scorn. “You all combine to ruin her temper and disposition with foolish flattery and weak yielding to her whims, right or wrong; you smile at her imperious pride and encourage her wilfulness, and then not only wonder at the results, but blame her, poor child, for all. Oh, you are a fine lot, The Duke and all of you!”
He had a most exasperating ability for putting one in the wrong, and I could only think of the proper and sufficient reply long after the opportunity for making it had passed. I wondered what The Duke would say to this doctrine. All the following day, which was Sunday, I could see that Gwen was on The Pilot's mind. He was struggling with the problem of pain.
Monday morning found us on the way to the Old Timer's ranch. And what a morning it was! How beautiful our world seemed! About us rolled the round-topped, velvet hills, brown and yellow or faintly green, spreading out behind us to the broad prairie, and before, clambering up and up to meet the purple bases of the great mountains that lay their mighty length along the horizon and thrust up white, sunlit peaks into the blue sky. On the hillsides and down in the sheltering hollows we could see the bunches of cattle and horses feeding upon the rich grasses. High above, the sky, cloudless and blue, arched its great kindly roof from prairie to mountain peaks, and over all, above, below, upon prairie, hillsides and mountains, the sun poured his floods of radiant yellow light.
As we followed the trail that wound up and into the heart of these rounded hills and ever nearer to the purple mountains, the morning breeze swept down to meet us, bearing a thousand scents, and filling us with its own fresh life. One can know the quickening joyousness of these Foothill breezes only after he has drunk with wide-open mouth, deep and full of them.
Through all this mingling beauty of sunlit hills and shady hollows and purple, snow-peaked mountains, we rode with hardly a word, every minute adding to our heart-filling delight, but ever with the thought of the little room where, shut in from all this outside glory, lay Gwen, heart-sore with fretting and longing. This must have been in The Pilot's mind, for he suddenly held up his horse and burst out:
“Poor Gwen, how she loves all this!—it is her very life. How can she help fretting the heart out of her? To see this no more!” He flung himself off his bronco and said, as if thinking aloud: “It is too awful! Oh, it is cruel! I don't wonder at her! God help me, what can I say to her?”
He threw himself down upon the grass and turned over on his face. After a few minutes he appealed to me, and his face was sorely troubled.
“How can one go to her? It seems to me sheerest mockery to speak of patience and submission to a wild young thing from whom all this is suddenly snatched forever—and this was very life to her, too, remember.”
Then he sprang up and we rode hard for an hour, till we came to the mouth of the canyon. Here the trail grew difficult and we came to a walk. As we went down into the cool depths the spirit of the canyon came to meet us and took The Pilot in its grip. He rode in front, feasting his eyes on all the wonders in that storehouse of beauty. Trees of many kinds deepened the shadows of the canyon. Over us waved the big elms that grew up here and there out of the bottom, and around their feet clustered low cedars and hemlocks and balsams, while the sturdy, rugged oaks and delicate, trembling poplars clung to the rocky sides and clambered up and out to the canyon's sunny lips. Back of all, the great black rocks, decked with mossy bits and clinging things, glistened cool and moist between the parting trees. From many an oozy nook the dainty clematis and columbine shook out their bells, and, lower down, from beds of many-colored moss the late wind-flower and maiden-hair and tiny violet lifted up brave, sweet faces. And through the canyon the Little Swan sang its song to rocks and flowers and overhanging trees, a song of many tones, deep-booming where it took its first sheer plunge, gay-chattering where it threw itself down the ragged rocks, and soft-murmuring where it lingered about the roots of the loving, listening elms. A cool, sweet, soothing place it was, with all its shades and sounds and silences, and, lest it should be sad to any, the sharp, quick sunbeams danced and laughed down through all its leaves upon mosses, flowers and rocks. No wonder that The Pilot, drawing a deep breath as he touched the prairie sod again, said:
“That does me good. It is better at times even than the sunny hills. This was Gwen's best spot.”
I saw that the canyon had done its work with him. His face was strong and calm as the hills on a summer morning, and with this face he looked in upon Gwen. It was one of her bad days and one of her bad moods, but like a summer breeze he burst into the little room.
“Oh, Gwen!” he cried, without a word of greeting, much less of Commiseration, “we have had such a ride!” And he spread out the sunlit, round-topped hills before her, till I could feel their very breezes in my face. This The Duke had never dared to do, fearing to grieve her with pictures of what she should look upon no more. But, as The Pilot talked, before she knew, Gwen was out again upon her beloved hills, breathing their fresh, sunny air, filling her heart with their multitudinous delights, till her eyes grew bright and the lines of fretting smoothed out of her face and she forgot her pain. Then, before she could remember, he had her down into the canyon, feasting her heart with its airs and sights and sounds. The black, glistening rocks, tricked out with moss and trailing vines, the great elms and low green cedars, the oaks and shivering poplars, the clematis and columbine hanging from the rocky nooks, and the violets and maiden-hair deep bedded in their mosses. All this and far more he showed her with a touch so light as not to shake the morning dew from bell or leaf or frond, and with a voice so soft and full of music as to fill our hearts with the canyon's mingling sounds, and, as I looked upon her face, I said to myself: “Dear old Pilot! for this I shall always love you well.” As poor Gwen listened, the rapture of it drew the big tears down her cheeks—alas! no longer brown, but white, and for that day at least the dull, dead weariness was lifted from her heart.
The Pilot's first visit to Gwen had been a triumph. But none knew better than he that the fight was still to come, for deep in Gwen's heart were thoughts whose pain made her forget all other.
“Was it God let me fall?” she asked abruptly one day, and The Pilot knew the fight was on; but he only answered, looking fearlessly into her eyes:
“Yes, Gwen dear.”
“Why did He let me fall?” and her voice was very deliberate.
“I don't know, Gwen dear,” said The Pilot steadily. “He knows.”
“And does He know I shall never ride again? Does He know how long the days are, and the nights when I can't sleep? Does He know?”
“Yes, Gwen dear,” said The Pilot, and the tears were standing in his eyes, though his voice was still steady enough.
“Are you sure He knows?” The voice was painfully intense.
“Listen to me, Gwen,” began The Pilot, in great distress, but she cut him short.
“Are you quite sure He knows? Answer me!” she cried, with her old imperiousness.
“Yes, Gwen, He knows all about you.”
“Then what do you think of Him, just because He's big and strong, treating a little girl that way?” Then she added, viciously: “I hate Him! I don't care! I hate Him!”
But The Pilot did not wince. I wondered how he would solve that problem that was puzzling, not only Gwen, but her father and The Duke, and all of us—the WHY of human pain.
“Gwen,” said The Pilot, as if changing the subject, “did it hurt to put on the plaster jacket?”
“You just bet!” said Gwen, lapsing in her English, as The Duke was not present; “it was worse than anything—awful! They had to straighten me out, you know,” and she shuddered at the memory of that pain.
“What a pity your father or The Duke was not here!” said The Pilot, earnestly.
“Why, they were both here!”
“What a cruel shame!” burst out The Pilot. “Don't they care for you any more?”
“Of course they do,” said Gwen, indignantly.
“Why didn't they stop the doctors from hurting you so cruelly?”
“Why, they let the doctors. It is going to help me to sit up and perhaps to walk about a little,” answered Gwen, with blue-gray eyes open wide.
“Oh,” said The Pilot, “it was very mean to stand by and see you hurt like that.”
“Why, you silly,” replied Owen, impatiently, “they want my back to get straight and strong.”
“Oh, then they didn't do it just for fun or for nothing?” said The Pilot, innocently.
Gwen gazed at him in amazed and speechless wrath, and he went on:
“I mean they love you though they let you be hurt; or rather they let the doctors hurt you BECAUSE they loved you and wanted to make you better.”
Gwen kept her eyes fixed with curious earnestness upon his face till the light began to dawn.
“Do you mean,” she began slowly, “that though God let me fall, He loves me?”
The Pilot nodded; he could not trust his voice.
“I wonder if that can be true,” she said, as if to herself; and soon we said good-by and came away—The Pilot, limp and voiceless, but I triumphant, for I began to see a little light for Gwen.
But the fight was by no means over; indeed, it was hardly well begun. For when the autumn came, with its misty, purple days, most glorious of all days in the cattle country, the old restlessness came back and the fierce refusal of her lot. Then came the day of the round-up. Why should she have to stay while all went after the cattle? The Duke would have remained, but she impatiently sent him away. She was weary and heart-sick, and, worst of all, she began to feel that most terrible of burdens, the burden of her life to others. I was much relieved when The Pilot came in fresh and bright, waving a bunch of wild-flowers in his hand.
“I thought they were all gone,” he cried. “Where do you think I found them? Right down by the big elm root,” and, though he saw by the settled gloom of her face that the storm was coming, he went bravely on picturing the canyon in all the splendor of its autumn dress. But the spell would not work. Her heart was out on the sloping hills, where the cattle were bunching and crowding with tossing heads and rattling horns, and it was in a voice very bitter and impatient that she cried:
“Oh, I am sick of all this! I want to ride! I want to see the cattle and the men and—and—and all the things outside.” The Pilot was cowboy enough to know the longing that tugged at her heart for one wild race after the calves or steers, but he could only say:
“Wait, Gwen. Try to be patient.”
“I am patient; at least I have been patient for two whole months, and it's no use, and I don't believe God cares one bit!”
“Yes, He does, Gwen, more than any of us,” replied The Pilot, earnestly.
“No, He does not care,” she answered, with angry emphasis, and The Pilot made no reply.
“Perhaps,” she went on, hesitatingly, “He's angry because I said I didn't care for Him, you remember? That was very wicked. But don't you think I'm punished nearly enough now? You made me very angry, and I didn't really mean it.”
Poor Gwen! God had grown to be very real to her during these weeks of pain, and very terrible. The Pilot looked down a moment into the blue-gray eyes, grown so big and so pitiful, and hurriedly dropping on his knees beside the bed he said, in a very unsteady voice:
“Oh, Gwen, Gwen, He's not like that. Don't you remember how Jesus was with the poor sick people? That's what He's like.”
“Could Jesus make me well?”
“Yes, Gwen.”
“Then why doesn't He?” she asked; and there was no impatience now, but only trembling anxiety as she went on in a timid voice: “I asked Him to, over and over, and said I would wait two months, and now it's more than three. Are you quite sure He hears now?” She raised herself on her elbow and gazed searchingly into The Pilot's face. I was glad it was not into mine. As she uttered the words, “Are you quite sure?” one felt that things were in the balance. I could not help looking at The Pilot with intense anxiety. What would he answer? The Pilot gazed out of the window upon the hills for a few moments. How long the silence seemed! Then, turning, looked into the eyes that searched his so steadily and answered simply:
“Yes, Gwen, I am quite sure!” Then, with quick inspiration, he got her mother's Bible and said: “Now, Gwen, try to see it as I read.” But, before he read, with the true artist's instinct he created the proper atmosphere. By a few vivid words he made us feel the pathetic loneliness of the Man of Sorrows in His last sad days. Then he read that masterpiece of all tragic picturing, the story of Gethsemane. And as he read we saw it all. The garden and the trees and the sorrow-stricken Man alone with His mysterious agony. We heard the prayer so pathetically submissive and then, for answer, the rabble and the traitor.
Gwen was far too quick to need explanation, and The Pilot only said, “You see, Gwen, God gave nothing but the best—to His own Son only the best.”
“The best? They took Him away, didn't they?” She knew the story well.
“Yes, but listen.” He turned the leaves rapidly and read: “'We see Jesus for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.' That is how He got His Kingdom.”
Gwen listened silent but unconvinced, and then said slowly:
“But how can this be best for me? I am no use to anyone. It can't be best to just lie here and make them all wait on me, and—and—I did want to help daddy—and—oh—I know they will get tired of me! They are getting tired already—I—I—can't help being hateful.”
She was by this time sobbing as I had never heard her before—deep, passionate sobs. Then again the Pilot had an inspiration.
“Now, Gwen,” he said severely, “you know we're not as mean as that, and that you are just talking nonsense, every word. Now I'm going to smooth out your red hair and tell you a story.”
“It's NOT red,” she cried, between her sobs. This was her sore point.
“It is red, as red can be; a beautiful, shining purple RED,” said The Pilot emphatically, beginning to brush.
“Purple!” cried Gwen, scornfully.
“Yes, I've seen it in the sun, purple. Haven't you?” said The Pilot, appealing to me. “And my story is about the canyon, our canyon, your canyon, down there.”
“Is it true?” asked Gwen, already soothed by the cool, quick-moving hands.
“True? It's as true as—as—” he glanced round the room, “as the Pilgrim's Progress.” This was satisfactory, and the story went on.
“At first there were no canyons, but only the broad, open prairie. One day the Master of the Prairie, walking out over his great lawns, where were only grasses, asked the Prairie, 'Where are your flowers?' and the Prairie said, 'Master, I have no seeds.' Then he spoke to the birds, and they carried seeds of every kind of flower and strewed them far and wide, and soon the Prairie bloomed with crocuses and roses and buffalo beans and the yellow crowfoot and the wild sunflowers and the red lilies all the summer long. Then the Master came and was well pleased; but he missed the flowers he loved best of all, and he said to the Prairie: 'Where are the clematis and the columbine, the sweet violets and wind flowers, and all the ferns and flowering shrubs?' And again he spoke to the birds, and again they carried all the seeds and strewed them far and wide. But, again, when the Master came, he could not find the flowers he loved best of all, and he said: 'Where are those, my sweetest flowers?' and the Prairie cried sorrowfully: 'Oh, Master, I cannot keep the flowers, for the winds sweep fiercely, and the sun beats upon my breast, and they wither up and fly away.' Then the Master spoke to the Lightning, and with one swift blow the Lightning cleft the Prairie to the heart. And the Prairie rocked and groaned in agony, and for many a day moaned bitterly over its black, jagged, gaping wound. But the Little Swan poured its waters through the cleft, and carried down deep black mould, and once more the birds carried seeds and strewed them in the canyon. And after a long time the rough rocks were decked out with soft mosses and trailing vines, and all the nooks were hung with clematis and columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the sunlight, and down about their feet clustered the low cedars and balsams, and everywhere the violets and wind-flower and maiden-hair grew and bloomed, till the canyon became the Masters place for rest and peace and joy.”
The quaint tale was ended, and Gwen lay quiet for some moments, then said gently:
“Yes! The canyon flowers are much the best. Tell me what it means.”
Then The Pilot read to her: “The fruits—I'll read 'flowers'—of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, and some of these grow only in the canyon.”
“Which are the canyon flowers?” asked Gwen softly, and The Pilot answered:
“Gentleness, meekness, self-control; but though the others, love, joy, peace, bloom in the open, yet never with so rich a bloom and so sweet a perfume as in the canyon.”
For a long time Gwen lay quite still, and then said wistfully, while her lip trembled:
“There are no flowers in my canyon, but only ragged rocks.”
“Some day they will bloom, Gwen dear; He will find them, and we, too, shall see them.”
Then he said good-by and took me away. He had done his work that day.
We rode through the big gate, down the sloping hill, past the smiling, twinkling little lake, and down again out of the broad sunshine into the shadows and soft lights of the canyon. As we followed the trail that wound among the elms and cedars, the very air was full of gentle stillness; and as we moved we seemed to feel the touch of loving hands that lingered while they left us, and every flower and tree and vine and shrub and the soft mosses and the deep-bedded ferns whispered, as we passed, of love and peace and joy.
To The Duke it was all a wonder, for as the days shortened outside they brightened inside; and every day, and more and more Gwen's room became the brightest spot in all the house, and when he asked The Pilot:
“What did you do to the Little Princess, and what's all this about the canyon and its flowers?” The Pilot said, looking wistfully into The Duke's eyes:
“The fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, and some of these are found only in the canyon,” and The Duke, standing up straight, handsome and strong, looked back at The Pilot and said, putting out his hand:
“Do you know, I believe you're right.”
“Yes, I'm quite sure,” answered The Pilot, simply. Then, holding The Duke's hand as long as one man dare hold another's, he added: “When you come to your canyon, remember.”
“When I come!” said The Duke, and a quick spasm of pain passed over his handsome face—“God help me, it's not too far away now.” Then he smiled again his old, sweet smile, and said:
“Yes, you are all right, for, of all flowers I have seen, none are fairer or sweeter than those that are waving in Gwen's Canyon.”
The Pilot had set his heart upon the building of a church in the Swan Creek district, partly because he was human and wished to set a mark of remembrance upon the country, but more because he held the sensible opinion, that a congregation, as a man, must have a home if it is to stay.
All through the summer he kept setting this as an object at once desirable and possible to achieve. But few were found to agree with him.
Little Mrs. Muir was of the few, and she was not to be despised, but her influence was neutralized by the solid immobility of her husband. He had never done anything sudden in his life. Every resolve was the result of a long process of mind, and every act of importance had to be previewed from all possible points. An honest man, strongly religious, and a great admirer of The Pilot, but slow-moving as a glacier, although with plenty of fire in him deep down.
“He's soond at the hairt, ma man Robbie,” his wife said to The Pilot, who was fuming and fretting at the blocking of his plans, “but he's terrible deleeberate. Bide ye a bit, laddie. He'll come tae.”
“But meantime the summer's going and nothing will be done,” was The Pilot's distressed and impatient answer.
So a meeting was called to discuss the question of building a church, with the result that the five men and three women present decided that for the present nothing could be done. This was really Robbie's opinion, though he refused to do or say anything but grunt, as The Pilot said to me afterwards, in a rage. It is true, Williams, the storekeeper just come from “across the line,” did all the talking, but no one paid much attention to his fluent fatuities except as they represented the unexpressed mind of the dour, exasperating little Scotchman, who sat silent but for an “ay” now and then, so expressive and conclusive that everyone knew what he meant, and that discussion was at an end. The schoolhouse was quite sufficient for the present; the people were too few and too poor and they were getting on well under the leadership of their present minister. These were the arguments which Robbie's “ay” stamped as quite unanswerable.
It was a sore blow to The Pilot, who had set his heart upon a church, and neither Mrs. Muir's “hoots” at her husband's slowness nor her promises that she “wad mak him hear it” could bring comfort or relieve his gloom.
In this state of mind he rode up with me to pay our weekly visit to the little girl shut up in her lonely house among the hills.
It had become The Pilot's custom during these weeks to turn for cheer to that little room, and seldom was he disappointed. She was so bright, so brave, so cheery, and so full of fun, that gloom faded from her presence as mist before the sun, and impatience was shamed into content.
Gwen's bright face—it was almost always bright now—and her bright welcome did something for The Pilot, but the feeling of failure was upon him, and failure to his enthusiastic nature was worse than pain. Not that he confessed either to failure or gloom; he was far too true a man for that; but Gwen felt his depression in spite of all his brave attempts at brightness, and insisted that he was ill, appealing to me.
“Oh, it's only his church,” I said, proceeding to give her an account of Robbie Muir's silent, solid inertness, and how he had blocked The Pilot's scheme.
“What a shame!” cried Gwen, indignantly. “What a bad man he must be!”
The Pilot smiled. “No, indeed,” he answered; “why, he's the best man in the place, but I wish he would say or do something. If he would only get mad and swear I think I should feel happier.”
Gwen looked quite mystified.
“You see, he sits there in solemn silence looking so tremendously wise that most men feel foolish if they speak, while as for doing anything the idea appears preposterous, in the face of his immovableness.”
“I can't bear him!” cried Gwen. “I should like to stick pins in him.”
“I wish some one would,” answered The Pilot. “It would make him seem more human if he could be made to jump.”
“Try again,” said Gwen, “and get someone to make him jump.”
“It would be easier to build the church,” said The Pilot, gloomily.
“I could make him jump,” said Gwen, viciously, “and I WILL,” she added, after a pause.
“You!” answered The Pilot, opening his eyes. “How?”
“I'll find some way,” she replied, resolutely.
And so she did, for when the next meeting was called to consult as to the building of a church, the congregation, chiefly of farmers and their wives, with Williams, the storekeeper, were greatly surprised to see Bronco Bill, Hi, and half a dozen ranchers and cowboys walk in at intervals and solemnly seat themselves. Robbie looked at them with surprise and a little suspicion. In church matters he had no dealings with the Samaritans from the hills, and while, in their unregenerate condition, they might be regarded as suitable objects of missionary effort, as to their having any part in the direction, much less control, of the church policy—from such a notion Robbie was delivered by his loyal adherence to the scriptural injunction that he should not cast pearls before swine.
The Pilot, though surprised to see Bill and the cattle men, was none the less delighted, and faced the meeting with more confidence. He stated the question for discussion: Should a church building be erected this summer in Swan Creek? and he put his case well. He showed the need of a church for the sake of the congregation, for the sake of the men in the district, the families growing up, the incoming settlers, and for the sake of the country and its future. He called upon all who loved their church and their country to unite in this effort. It was an enthusiastic appeal and all the women and some of the men were at once upon his side.
Then followed dead, solemn silence. Robbie was content to wait till the effect of the speech should be dissipated in smaller talk. Then he gravely said:
“The kirk wad be a gran' thing, nae doot, an' they wad a' dootless”—with a suspicious glance toward Bill—“rejoice in its erection. But we maun be cautious, an' I wad like to enquire hoo much money a kirk cud be built for, and whaur the money wad come frae?”
The Pilot was ready with his answer. The cost would be $1,200. The Church Building Fund would contribute $200, the people could give $300 in labor, and the remaining $700 he thought could be raised in the district in two years' time.
“Ay,” said Robbie, and the tone and manner were sufficient to drench any enthusiasm with the chilliest of water. So much was this the case that the chairman, Williams, seemed quite justified in saying:
“It is quite evident that the opinion of the meeting is adverse to any attempt to load the community with a debt of one thousand dollars,” and he proceeded with a very complete statement of the many and various objections to any attempt at building a church this year. The people were very few, they were dispersed over a large area, they were not interested sufficiently, they were all spending money and making little in return; he supposed, therefore, that the meeting might adjourn.
Robbie sat silent and expressionless in spite of his little wife's anxious whispers and nudges. The Pilot looked the picture of woe, and was on the point of bursting forth, when the meeting was startled by Bill.
“Say, boys! they hain't much stuck on their shop, heh?” The low, drawling voice was perfectly distinct and arresting.
“Hain't got no use for it, seemingly,” was the answer from the dark corner.
“Old Scotchie takes his religion out in prayin', I guess,” drawled in Bill, “but wants to sponge for his plant.”
This reference to Robbie's proposal to use the school moved the youngsters to tittering and made the little Scotchman squirm, for he prided himself upon his independence.
“There ain't $700 in the hull blanked outfit.” This was a stranger's voice, and again Robbie squirmed, for he rather prided himself also on his ability to pay his way.
“No good!” said another emphatic voice. “A blanked lot o' psalm-singing snipes.”
“Order, order!” cried the chairman.
“Old Windbag there don't see any show for swipin' the collection, with Scotchie round,” said Hi, with a following ripple of quiet laughter, for Williams' reputation was none too secure.
Robbie was in a most uncomfortable state of mind. So unusually stirred was he that for the first time in his history he made a motion.
“I move we adjourn, Mr. Chairman,” he said, in a voice which actually vibrated with emotion.
“Different here! eh, boys?” drawled Bill.
“You bet,” said Hi, in huge delight. “The meetin' ain't out yit.”
“Ye can bide till mor-r-nin',” said Robbie, angrily. “A'm gaen hame,” beginning to put on his coat.
“Seems as if he orter give the password,” drawled Bill.
“Right you are, pardner,” said Hi, springing to the door and waiting in delighted expectation for his friend's lead.
Robbie looked at the door, then at his wife, hesitated a moment, I have no doubt wishing her home. Then Bill stood up and began to speak.
“Mr. Chairman, I hain't been called on for any remarks—”
“Go on!” yelled his friends from the dark corner. “Hear! hear!”
“An' I didn't feel as if this war hardly my game, though The Pilot ain't mean about invitin' a feller on Sunday afternoons. But them as runs the shop don't seem to want us fellers round too much.”
Robbie was gazing keenly at Bill, and here shook his head, muttering angrily: “Hoots, nonsense! ye're welcome eneuch.”
“But,” went on Bill, slowly, “I guess I've been on the wrong track. I've been a-cherishin' the opinion” [“Hear! hear!” yelled his admirers], “cherishin' the opinion,” repeated Bill, “that these fellers,” pointing to Robbie, “was stuck on religion, which I ain't much myself, and reely consarned about the blocking ov the devil, which The Pilot says can't be did without a regular Gospel factory. O' course, it tain't any biznis ov mine, but if us fellers was reely only sot on anything condoocin',” [“Hear! hear!” yelled Hi, in ecstasy], “condoocin',” repeated Bill slowly and with relish, “to the good ov the Order” (Bill was a brotherhood man), “I b'lieve I know whar five hundred dollars mebbe cud per'aps be got.”
“You bet your sox,” yelled the strange voice, in chorus with other shouts of approval.
“O' course, I ain't no bettin' man,” went on Bill, insinuatingly, “as a regular thing, but I'd gamble a few jist here on this pint; if the boys was stuck on anythin' costin' about seven hundred dollars, it seems to me likely they'd git it in about two days, per'aps.”
Here Robbie grunted out an “ay” of such fulness of contemptuous unbelief that Bill paused, and, looking over Robbie's head, he drawled out, even more slowly and mildly:
“I ain't much given to bettin', as I remarked before, but, if a man shakes money at me on that proposition, I'd accommodate him to a limited extent.” [“Hear! hear! Bully boy!” yelled Hi again, from the door.] “Not bein' too bold, I cherish the opinion” [again yells of approval from the corner], “that even for this here Gospel plant, seein' The Pilot's rather sot onto it, I b'lieve the boys could find five hundred dollars inside ov a month, if perhaps these fellers cud wiggle the rest out ov their pants.”
Then Robbie was in great wrath and, stung by the taunting, drawling voice beyond all self-command, he broke out suddenly:
“Ye'll no can mak that guid, I doot.”
“D'ye mean I ain't prepared to back it up?”
“Ay,” said Robbie, grimly.
“'Tain't likely I'll be called on; I guess $500 is safe enough,” drawled Bill, cunningly drawing him on. Then Robbie bit.
“Oo ay!” said he, in a voice of quiet contempt, “the twa hunner wull be here and 'twull wait ye long eneuch, I'se warrant ye.”
Then Bill nailed him.
“I hain't got my card case on my person,” he said, with a slight grin.
“Left it on the pianner,” suggested Hi, who was in a state of great hilarity at Bill's success in drawing the Scottie.
“But,” Bill proceeded, recovering himself, and with increasing suavity, “if some gentleman would mark down the date of the almanac I cherish the opinion” [cheers from the corner] “that in one month from to-day there will be five hundred dollars lookin' round for two hundred on that there desk mebbe, or p'raps you would incline to two fifty,” he drawled, in his most winning tone to Robbie, who was growing more impatient every moment.
“Nae matter tae me. Ye're haverin' like a daft loon, ony way.”
“You will make a memento of this slight transaction, boys, and per'aps the schoolmaster will write it down,” said Bill.
It was all carefully taken down, and amid much enthusiastic confusion the ranchers and their gang carried Bill off to Old Latour's to “licker up,” while Robbie, in deep wrath but in dour silence, went off through the dark with his little wife following some paces behind him. His chief grievance, however, was against the chairman for “allooin' sic a disorderly pack o' loons tae disturb respectable fowk,” for he could not hide the fact that he had been made to break through his accustomed defence line of immovable silence. I suggested, conversing with him next day upon the matter, that Bill was probably only chaffing.
“Ay,” said Robbie, in great disgust, “the daft eejut, he wad mak a fule o' onything or onybuddie.”
That was the sorest point with poor Robbie. Bill had not only cast doubts upon his religious sincerity, which the little man could not endure, but he had also held him up to the ridicule of the community, which was painful to his pride. But when he understood, some days later, that Bill was taking steps to back up his offer and had been heard to declare that “he'd make them pious ducks take water if he had to put up a year's pay,” Robbie went quietly to work to make good his part of the bargain. For his Scotch pride would not suffer him to refuse a challenge from such a quarter.